


changing faces

by haikuparjour



Series: Stark Sister Feels [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mild season 7 spoilers, mentions of past violence, post 7x04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 17:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11787687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haikuparjour/pseuds/haikuparjour
Summary: “What do you mean you learned to wear a face?” Sansa asked, wrinkling her nose. “Do you mean you wore a mask?”Arya heaved a sigh.





	changing faces

**Author's Note:**

> Here we are again. Still trying to get my thoughts out before my hopes and dreams are dashed tomorrow. Still unbetad.  
> Can be read as a continuation of any of the previous four, or on its own.

“What do you mean you learned to wear a face?” Sansa asked, wrinkling her nose. “Do you mean you wore a mask?”

Arya heaved a sigh. She had been trying to tell Sansa of her training at the House of Black and White, with as few of the more sordid details as possible, and was coming up short. She had side-stepped any mention of the word ‘assassin’ thus far, but could not think of a way to make the preparation and use of the Hall of Faces more palatable.  

“In a way, I guess,” Aray started, “Only they had been faces that others had worn.” She saw that Sansa still sported a bemused look. “When they were alive,” she finished lamely.

Her sister paled, and Arya heard Sansa’s chair scrape over the ground as it was pushed away from the table, putting distance between them. “You mean to say you _skinned_ people and then you and your master wore their faces like some ghastly puppets?” Sansa spat.

_Seven hells,_ Arya thought. _She thinks me to be like that cunt Ramsey, flaying people for pleasure._ She searched for what to say that would help save the conversation.

“No, no, not like that!” _Well, only the waif was like that…but I didn’t wear her face._ “Those who came were seeking the Gift for themselves or someone whom they loved who was in pain,” Ayra hurriedly explained; she never intended to speak to Sansa of those who paid a hefty price for their enemies to receive the Gift.

“The gift?” Sansa was still very pale, and looked as though she wanted to continue to put space between them.

“The Gift of final peace; death,” she said wistfully. “We would take them to a little room when they were gone. I helped bathe them, stitch up any wounds, wash their hair, perfume their bodies. I did that for a long while before I ever knew what was done with them after.”

Sansa’s next words were like steel, “And what was done with them after?”

“I don’t know all of the parts, exactly,” Arya admitted. “I know what tinctures and powders to use in which order, I can repeat words I heard others say when I watched them do it, and I know when to take the face for the Many Faced God. But I don’t know what they did with the bodies after, and I don’t know what the tonics and powders contain that make it so the body does not bleed when the face is given to the God or what keeps it from decaying. If what I was told is true, some of the faces in that hall have been there for hundreds of years.” _Not her face, though. Let it rot there._

Sansa shook her head, a look of disbelief on her face. “Arya this can’t have happened. One can’t just go around wearing someone’s skinned face like a mask and have no one notice.”

Arya grit her teeth. She remembered her own disbelief when all that time ago she had first seen him remove his face outside of Harrenhal. It wasn’t until she had seen the Hall of Faces that she had started to believe. She couldn’t show Sansa the Hall any time soon, however.

_Still,_ she thought as her eyes fell upon the small pack, _perhaps there is something else I could show her…_

Sansa had followed her gaze. “What’s in there?” she asked quietly.

“If I show you something, I need you to promise that you will not tell another soul. Not Brienne, nor Jon, and certainly not Littlefinger,” Arya said firmly. “Well,” she mused, “you can talk to Bran I guess; he’s likely seen it already.”

“What are you going to show me?” Sansa’s brows raised so high that Arya feared they might disappear into her hair.

Arya stood and made her way over to her pack. “That’s not how this is going to work. Promise first, and I’ll show you second.” She sat on the foot of her bed, and pulled the bundle up next to her.

Sansa gulped. “Yes, I promise,” she whispered.

Arya turned her body away from her sister, thrust her had into the bag, and then dragged her prize over her face. “I need to ask you not to scream,” Arya’s new voice said.

“What happened to your voice?” Sansa asked.

She had to give Sansa credit; her sister did not scream when Arya turned her head.  She had, however, stood from her chair so quickly that it made a racket as it fell to the floor, and it seemed to Arya that she was shaking.

Arya moved from the bed and went to walk around the table to her, when Sansa moved away from her. Arya knit her brows together. “Sansa it is still me.” She moved towards her sister again.

“Yes, thanks for that. I -,” Sansa’s voice was trembling as she continued to move to keep the table between the two of them. “I do need... Just a moment, Arya if you would just… Please, stay there.”

Arya obeyed.

They stayed like that for a few minutes before Sansa began to close the distance between them. When Arya finally stood toe to toe with her sister, Sansa raised a steady hand and asked, “May I?” Arya nodded, and Sansa touched the face with a look of wonder upon her own. “Can you feel this?” Arya nodded again. Sansa’s fingers continued to gently probe for a few moments more before she murmured, “I believe you,” and then turned away to right her fallen chair.

Arya wiped her hand over her face, moved back to her pack, and shoved her fist into it. She sat back at the table with Sansa and poured them both another cup of wine.

“Who was she?” Sansa asked after a few minutes.

“I found her soon after I returned to Westeros. I went up to her house to see if she had some food, but she asked the same of me.  When I told her I hadn’t anything, she took one look at the sword on my belt and asked if I could give her a quick death.” Arya drained her cup. “I took some of all that was necessary from the House of Black and White when I left, so I prepared the body and took her face.”

“What use had you for it?” Sansa queried.

Arya gave her sister a puzzled look. “How else did you think I got into the Twins? Jamie Lannister himself was there – If I hadn’t been using it I would have been captured on sight.”

“I see,” Sansa said hesitantly. “And is that when you killed all of the Frey’s?”

_I could lie,_ Arya thought. She gazed into her sister’s eyes. _No. Omitting the bit about the paid-for killings is enough, I cannot outright lie to her._

“No,” Arya confessed. “Only old Walder. There were too many Lannisters there when I arrived, and I didn’t have enough poison for them all. I took Walder’s face as well, and then wore it until all the Lannisters had gone.”

“How long?” Sansa’s tone was sharp again, but Arya did not flinch.

“A little over a week.”

“So his face is in your pack as well, I suppose?” Sansa chided.

Arya let out a snort. “Of course not, I would never don such filth again.”

Silence stretched between them once more, but Arya could sense her sister was not done. She was determined to wait for her sister’s scolding in silence. 

“Arya,” Sansa began gently, “is this something you are planning on doing often?”

The question took her by surprise. _Is this what she’s worried about? That I am going to take the faces of all that I meet?_

“Only if I need to,” Arya answered. Truthfully, she had only a limited supply of what had been taken from the House with her, and she didn’t know if she would ever get her hands on the like again; she did not want to waste it. “Only if it will help protect our family.”

Sansa nodded and gave a small smile. Arya grinned back at her. Out of all of her siblings, she had known that Sansa was going to be the most critical of what she had done. But now, with her sister’s acceptance, Arya felt the remaining tension leave her body and finally started to feel like she was home.

**Author's Note:**

> So, obviously my Faceless Men headcanon is that they need to have the faces with them to wear them, and that there must be some preparation for the faces not to rot.
> 
> Thanks again for the continued kudos, comments and bookmarks!


End file.
